joni ernst

Guests walk though the 2014 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa on August 9. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

I attended the Iowa State Fair last week with Roll Call Politics Reporter Alexis Levinson to cover the Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. The candidates running for the seat are Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley and Republican state Senator Joni Ernst. I’ve have enjoyed taking photos of politicians at the fair in the past, but it proved tricky this time with the volume of people following them.

Braley delivered his stump speech on Thursday and then walked the grounds with a motley crew in tow, including: staff, reporters, filmmakers, opposition trackers, hecklers holding signs and random hangers-on. Luckily, I was the only still photographer from the media. However, if the candidate did something that would make a good picture, it was hard to get into position, and nearly impossible to exclude all the extraneous people. At that point, as a photographer, you have to try to make a photo that shows everything going on. These two frames are typical of what was going on – staffers for the candidate were constantly trying to block opposition protesters and trackers.

Former Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin is covering her ongoing political expenses with the help of retirees and others providing small donations to her PAC.

Sarah PAC, the political action committee of Sarah Palin, the former Republican nominee for Vice President in 2008, reported it had receipts of $460,648 and disbursements of $576,242 during the second quarter of 2014, leaving $970,939 cash on hand as of June 30th.